Yonkers: Monday 11/23 Analysis
Brewster Smith's analysis of the Monday 11/23 card at Yonkers Raceway.
Brewster SmithNov 20, 2015
Brewster Smith's analysis of the Monday 11/23 card at Yonkers Raceway.
Let’s look at Sunday’s late pick four, which features the $100,000 Key Cents for 2-year-old New York-bred fillies.
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Ballade did not excel as a racemare, but her descendants have preserved a place for her in racing history. Thus, it was rewarding to see a tail-female descendant of the mare, Isabella Sings, win the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere at Churchill Downs.
Not especially enamored of any single horses at decent prices on the Delta Jackpot card, and the threat of rain Saturday also is cause for handicapping/bet-formulating pause. So, let’s take the obvious road here and dive into the all-stakes pick four spanning races 4-7 and landing on the $1 million Jackpot itself.
Both the Keeneland November breeding stock sale and the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky selected fall mixed sale showed strength in the weanling market, with improved average prices and competitive action at the top that bodes well for upcoming years.
The top three finishers from the $100,000 Perryville Stakes on the Breeders' Cup undercard at Keeneland, separated by a mere half-length, are the headliners among eight 3-year-olds in the inaugural $200,000 Steel Valley Sprint on Monday at Mahoning Valley Race Course.
With rain in the forecast Saturday afternoon and temperatures predicted to dip into the 20s that evening, the Churchill track-maintenance crew will have a busy Saturday evening and Sunday, regularly harrowing the main track to keep it from freezing.
By now, String King must know the 335-mile route from the River Point Equestrian Center in Haughton, La., to Fair Grounds well enough he could walk it on his own rather than ride in a trailer, but of course, it was a horse trailer that Charlie Smith – breeder, owner, and trainer of String King – used to take the horse from River Point to New Orleans a couple weeks ago. String King worked a half-mile on dirt in 48.20 seconds Nov. 14, the fastest of 125 drills at the distance that morning at Fair Grounds, and as usual, Smith, back home in northwest Louisiana, where he runs an auto body shop, has left String King in the care of his friend, trainer Kenny Hargrave.
Typical for Churchill Downs, the fall meet, which ends next Saturday, will conclude with a flurry of graded stakes action, including two graded stakes each day Thursday through Saturday.
When a rider goes down in a spill and does not immediately spring back up, worry creeps into the hearts of those watching as they wait, hoping for a signal the jockey avoided a major injury. In this short period of time, minutes can seem like hours, as they did Thursday at Churchill Downs after Sebastian Saez and Sophie Doyle were unseated in a spill during the fifth race.